🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec13.063111.26607@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com
(David Sternlight) writes:
> As I understand it, the details of the S-boxes were not [published
> in the Federal Register] (though they can, I suppose be gotten via
> decompiling or examining source code), yet without them one could
> not implement DES and thus they are an essential part of the
> algorithm, in Bill's terms.

You're right in the particulars, but very wrong in general.

The Federal Register is the listing of all the regulations that the
government has made.  When they change the food-labeling laws so that
"Monosodium Glutamate" must always be written in 12-point Palatino
Bold -- the Federal Register is where it gets listed.  They wouldn't
publish DES there in any case because it's not where it goes.

The DES algorithm is published in a FIPS PUB, which you can get from
the government printing office.  And the GPO will send it anywhere,
worldwide.  They would send it out even if the address is "KGB
Headquarters, Lubyanka, Moscow" (assuming the KGB's check doesn't
bounce -- possibly an unwarranted assumption).

There is NO need to disassemble software or examine microchips under a
microscope in order to reimplement DES.  You can look it up in any
technical library -- probably even the Moscow University library.
It's a PUBLIC algorithm.

Why it's still illegal to export DES chips is a mystery to me; the
ones you buy all say "Malaysia" on them anyway...



-- 
Daniel F. Boyd -- boyd@cs.buffalo.edu         -a +X -x -e -m -S -F"> "
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